Max Bewer

Monument on the urn grove Tolkewitz

Max Bewer (born January 19, 1861 in Düsseldorf , † October 13, 1921 in Meißen ) was a German writer and poet .

Life

The son of the painter Clemens Bewer and Bertha Glaserfeld, as well as the brother of the Imperial Court Councilor Rudolf Bewer , was born in Düsseldorf as the offspring of a respected Rhenish family of artists. After dropping out of school early, he tried his hand at being a theater critic in Hamburg. His own literary attempts, such as the drama Danton (1883), received little public attention. After Bewer finished high school, he worked as a foreign correspondent for several newspapers in Copenhagen . In 1890 he settled as a freelance writer in Laubegast near Dresden and joined the ethnic anti- Semitic camp.

Poems and Political Writings

Bewer's numerous poems and writings are variations on three always the same themes: the admiration of the German classics, the glorification of the "Reich founder" Otto von Bismarck and fanatical anti-Semitism . Nevertheless, he enjoyed a broad, well-meaning readership, right up to the Saxon royal family. Large parts of the public perceived Bewer as a local poet in the context of the local art movement . He achieved audience successes and awards with city anthems, landscape and folk poetry (songs from Norway , songs from the smallest hut) and patriotic heroes worship (Der deutsche Himmel) . In 1906 three people proposed him for the Nobel Prize in Literature .

At the same time Bewer acted as a political writer in the environment of the national movement . Between 1890 and 1914 he went public with numerous articles, brochures, picture sheets and books that dealt with the “ Jewish question ” in an anti-Semitic sense . Bewer played a key role in the cartoon series Politische Bilderbogen (1892–1901, 33 numbers). He provided the accompanying texts, some of which openly called for a pogrom against Jews. These and other works were published by the Dresden publishing house F. W. Glöß from 1890, later also by Bewer's own Goethe publishing house. Through the publisher Glöß, Bewer came into contact with prominent representatives of the ethnic movement such as Julius Langbehn and Hermann Ahlwardt . He saw himself as a student of the cultural philosopher Langbehn and in 1892 wrote an anonymous defense for his book Rembrandt als Erzieher (1890).

Bismarck worship and ethnic anti-Semitism

In the early 1890s, Bewer's Bismarck writings attracted public attention, attacking Kaiser Wilhelm II , the policy of the " New Course " under Bismarck's successor Leo von Caprivi, and the internal "enemies of the Reich" with populist severity . The tenor was always similar: German politics, internally and externally, had never been so weak and insecure. Bismarck's fall was the result of a Jewish-Jesuit conspiracy that Caprivi's policy was “Jewish-liberal” and played into the hands of internal and external “enemies of the empire”, while the emperor was trapped in Byzantine vanity and incompetence and alienated from the people. In contrast, Bewer celebrated Bismarck as a “ tribune of the people ” and figurehead of the “national opposition” against the court, government and internal “enemies of the Reich”, all of whom were under Jewish influence.

Bewer was one of the most popular key speakers at Bismarck celebrations and inaugurations of Bismarck monuments . In 1891 Bismarck gave his unconditional admirer an audience. After that, however, Friedrichsruh kept a distance from the "vulgar character" and "tactless, if well-meaning small townspeople" ( Herbert von Bismarck ). Bewer can be regarded as the most popular advocate of a völkisch Bismarck image, which did not shy away from using the "Reich founder" as a key witness for anti-Semitism, for example in picture sheet no. 10.

Ritual murder legend

The work Thoughts (1892) , written in Langbehn's style, deals with a. with by the Xanten blood libel gerückten public awareness of blood libel . Here Bewer advocated the thesis that Jews would kill Christian children in order to carry out a kind of isopathic therapy with their blood to keep their race clean ( see also picture sheet no. 13).

"The German Christ"

In his work The German Christ (1907), Bewer mixed religious and racist hostility to Jews by declaring Jesus Christ to be an Aryan and anti-Semite from the Lower Rhine. The underlying ideology aimed at the synthesis of Germanness and Christianity as overcoming the denominational split on the basis of the "Jew" as the common enemy of all Germans and all Christians. The writings of Paul de Lagarde and Houston Stewart Chamberlains are likely to have served as a model for these ethnic-religious speculations . It is noteworthy in this context that Bewer was one of the few Catholics who acted in the völkisch movement and strived to unite Catholic and ethnic anti-Semitism. However, Bewer did not achieve a greater response in the Catholic milieu.

Author of the Volkish Scene and Decline

In addition to independent works, Max Bewer published numerous articles in the Antisemitische Correspondenz (later German social papers ) and in Theodor Fritsch's magazine Hammer . This made him one of the most productive authors on the ethnic-anti-Semitic scene. He not only earned applause from the Volkish movement for his prolific writing. He was denounced (incorrectly) as a “ half-Jew ” and ridiculed for his curious style. During the First World War , Bewer wrote countless patriotic poems and glorified the German Kaiser, who had been severely criticized a few years earlier, in grotesque contradiction to the true mood at the front and at home. Bewer could no longer gain a foothold in the folk milieu of the Weimar Republic .

After his death in 1921 at the age of 60, a memorial was erected in the grove of the Tolkewitz crematorium in Dresden in 1923. It still stands today.

Awards and honors

• 1889: Goethe Prize of the Frankfurter Zeitung

Works

• Danton , drama, 1883
• Bismarck is getting old! , Grunow, Leipzig 1889
• Bismarck, Moltke and Goethe , Bagel, Düsseldorf 1890
• A Goethe Prize , Glöß, Dresden 1890
• Thoughts on Bismarck. Political aphorisms , Glöß, Dresden 1890
• At Bismarck , Glöß, Dresden 1891
• Bismarck in the Reichstag , Glöß, Dresden 1891
• Bismarck and Rotschild , Glöß, Dresden 1891
• Rembrandt and Bismarck , Glöß, Dresden 1891
• The fall of Austria , Glöß, Dresden 1891
• Political picture sheets 1892–1901 , 33 issues, Glöß, Dresden
• Grave inscriptions on Bismarck , Glöß, Dresden 1892
• Bismarck and the court , Glöß, Dresden 1892
• Thoughts , Glöß, Dresden 1892
• Bismarck and the Kaiser , Glöß, Dresden 1895
• Poems , Glöß, Dresden 1895
• The Pope in Friedrichsruh , Glöß, Dresden 1897
• Xenien , Glöß, Dresden 1899
• Artist mirror , Goethe Verlag, Dresden 1904
• Bismarck , Schuster et al. Löffler, Berlin 1905
• The German Christ , Goethe Verlag, Dresden 1907
• Savings. A proposal for the army and the people , Goethe Verlag, Dresden 1909
• How to be happy , Goethe Verlag, Dresden 1910
• Songs from the smallest hut , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1911
• The German Heaven , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1912
• War songs and war humor , Hausemann, Penig in Saxony 1915
• German War Prayer Book , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1915
• The Kaiser in the trenches and other war songs , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1915
• Humor in the field! , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1915
• The emperor in the field. 50 war songs , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1916
• 200 war songs , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1916
• Iron Peace , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1916
• Naval war songs , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1916
• At Kaiser and Hinderburg's main headquarters , Remert, Dresden 1917
• Drums and trumpets. 70 new war poems , Schultze, Leipzig 1918
• Thoughts of consolation for the bereaved , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1919
• The Sparrow Republic , Goethe Verlag, Leipzig 1920

literature

• Rudolf Bewer : Bewer family from the Lower Rhine , in: Central Office for German Person and Family History (Hrsg.): Contributions to family history . Volume 10.1930, ZDB ID 526079-6 . Zentralstelle, Leipzig 1930, pp. 128–159.
• Thomas Grafe: Anti-Semitism in society and caricature of the empire. Glöß 'Politische Bilderbogen 1892–1901 . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2005, ISBN 3-8334-3529-1 . - Table of contents (PDF) .
• Thomas Gräfe: Between Catholic and Völkisch anti-Semitism. The books, brochures and picture sheets by the writer Max Bewer (1861–1921) . In: International Archive for the Social History of German Literature 34, Issue 2.2009, ISSN  0175-9779 , pp. 121–156. - Reading sample online .
• Rainer Smile, Germanization of Christianity - Heroization of Christ. Arthur Bonus, Max Bewer, Julius Bode . In: Stefanie von Schnurbein (Hrsg.), Justus H. Ulbricht (Hrsg.): Völkische Religion and Krisen der Moderne. Drafts of "native" belief systems since the turn of the century . Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-2160-6 , pp. 165-183. - Table of contents online (PDF) .
• Barbara Suchy: Anti-Semitism in the years before the First World War , in: Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz u. a. (Ed.): Cologne and Rhenish Judaism. Festschrift of Germania Judaica 1959–1984 . Bachem, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7616-0719-9 , pp. 252-285. - Table of contents online (PDF) .
• Justus H. Ulbricht: Das völkische Verlagwesen im Kaiserreich , in: Uwe Puschner (Hrsg.), Walter Schmitz (Hrsg.), - (Hrsg.): Handbuch zur “Völkische Movement” 1871-1918 . Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11421-4 , pp. 277-301. - Table of contents online (PDF) .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nomination Database: Max Bewer. In: Nobelprize.org. Retrieved May 11, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Max Bewer:  Dum-Dum-Means !. In:  Deutsche Presse , Volume 37 (Volume I), October 1, 1914, p. 7, top left. (Online at ANNO ). .

Web links

• Literature by and about Max Bewer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Thomas Gräfe: Bewer, Max . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .